Chapter 9

To Liam, being part of the President's detail was the pinnacle of his career. It was also much more difficult than he had thought it would be. Working with other agents, knowing where to be, what to watch out for - all of those were, by now, routine activities, and he was even better at them now that he had the abilities that came with being linked to the others. The difficulty was that President Winchell, under the severe business suits she wore in public, was a very desirable woman, even more so because, through her husband's eyes, he had seen her without those business suits. He had, in fact, by proxy, made love to her on numerous occasions.

That was what made guarding her so difficult. In person, she was beautiful and charming and had one of the sharpest minds he had ever encountered. In bed, she was just as uninhibited as the Gemini girls, and, increasingly, Liam found himself drawn to her in most inappropriate and unprofessional ways.

Stephanie, though she did her best not to encourage him in any way, could not help but notice his growing affection, and neither could the others. To his astonishment, Liam felt the others, including Darren, sympathizing with him instead of chastising him. All knew that, as long as Stephanie was President, there was nothing any of them could do to change the situation, so Liam suffered and the Gemini Girls - Stephanie's mother and aunts - did their best to take his mind off his dilemma.

Not that Liam lacked for sex. The ladies of Gemini/Winchell Security Systems certainly saw to that. It was just that the tantalizing, almost-sex with the unreachable, untouchable, President of the United States was driving him batty. It was Master Sung who finally snapped him out of it.

"Listen to me, you silly boy! Do you think with your head, or with your penis?" Liam was shocked enough at such language from the old gentleman to be fully attentive to what he was saying. "Will you waste your life and put hers in danger, longing for what you may not have? In time, all things are possible, but that assumes that one lives long enough to make it possible. If you do not stop pining away over this schoolboy crush, you will allow her to be killed, and then you will have only your shame and guilt to keep you warm at night. Is this what you want?"

"No, Master," Liam replied, humbled. The master was right, of course, and Liam felt something shift inside himself. The longing was still there, but it no longer dominated his thoughts.

Not long after Liam's reassignment, Darren, Jun, Sun, Mei and Wei made a trip to the west coast to meet with Stephanie's father. Since Stephen Hastings still kept G/WSS as his security contractor, he had been apprised of the situation in Hong Kong and the probable culprit. The problem, of course, continued to weigh on his mind, and he had asked for the meeting to see if there was anything they could do to head off the malevolent intent of CNOOCO and others whose business had been curtailed by the advent of the Hastings fusion plant.

"I don't think we want to limit our possible solutions to CNOOCO and the ROC." Hastings said, as the meeting got under way. "The OPEC nations and every other major oil company in the world have good reason to want to either destroy us or get a piece of the action, and frankly, I'm not sure I blame them. We kind of threw a monkey wrench in the works when we introduced such a cheap, non-petroleum fueled energy source. Hell, even the coal mining companies and the bio-diesel people have reason to hate us. The solar power lobby, if they can ever figure out how to collect solar energy reliably and in great enough quantity, could be serious competition in some areas, but for now, they're still stumbling around trying to figure out how to shrink the size of solar collectors to a manageable acreage, and funding may be drying up for them, given the broad applicability of our product. Basically, there are a lot of countries, companies and other concerns who have, or think they have, an excuse to want bad things to happen to Hastings Enterprises. Anyone got any ideas about how we can keep those bad things from happening?"

Darren and the G-girls, of course, were right there with suggestions about improving security, and Liam, standing guard outside the Oval Office while Stephanie held a meeting inside, found himself nodding mentally at their suggestions. The problem, of course, was that any security blanket could be breached with the right people, tools, techniques, etc. and all of them knew it. It put Hastings in mind of the time when his business and his future hinged upon his surviving against impossible odds. He had been lucky, then, to have had the help of Mei and Wei, and later, Sun and Jun, but in the end, it had been the combination of his brain power and the skills and abilities of the world's best bodyguards that had seen him through.

He would need the same sort of combination of luck and intellect to see him through this time, but he couldn't help but wonder if the years of wealth and easy living had slowed him down a step or two. Only time would tell. Meanwhile, he was pretty sure that tightening security would do little more than delay the inevitable.

"Is Stephanie there?" he asked of those in the room, being one of the three people not linked with them who knew about their connection.

"She's in a meeting, Sir," Darren answered, "but she's listening in through us."

"Well, when she gets out of her meeting, would you ask her to give it some thought?" Hastings asked, as if passing a message through the phone. Some aspects of their link were still a mystery to him. "When she inherited her mother's brain as well as mine, she became something special, and if she's got any ideas I would really like to hear them."

It was several hours before Stephanie called her father back, and by that time, all of them, except Liam, knew what she was going to say. Liam was still not attuned to the 'group subconscious' but when Stephanie spoke with her Dad, a smile grew slowly on his face as the elegance of her solution, and the ramifications of its implementation became clear. Stephanie was on her way to a Presidential performance of some Philharmonic Orchestra or other, and Liam was already at the auditorium with others of the President's Secret Service detail as her bulletproof limousine pulled up in front, to the flashing of cameras as the throng of paparazzi and mainstream media reporters did their best to get THE shot of the President that no one else could get - an impossible quest, but it hadn't occurred to the camera and flash wielders. Liam knew that eyes would be useless while the strobes were going off, so he stretched out with the other senses that were now his as a result of his union with the First Gentleman and the girls of Gemini. Close in, he sensed nothing but bored reporters and excited onlookers, and he spread his perception outward, borrowing Darren's ability to 'taste' a person's emotions. As he scanned further and further from his location, the crowd thinned, then vanished, and his senses were in the buildings that bordered the plaza. The auditorium had been cleared by the Secret Service so he paid it little attention, and in the other buildings found only bored security guards or the occasional frustrated employee who was working late.

Nothing hap... He started to tell himself, when he 'tasted' something sharper, more pungent as the President stepped from her limo, smiling and waving to the crowds. There! Fifth floor of the building about a thousand yards to the left. Someone VERY interested in what's happening here.

Automatically, he drifted toward the line of sight between the 'interested party' and the President, speaking into his sleeve mic. "Check out the fifth floor of the office building to the left! I caught a glint of light from a darkened window."

Liam was almost in position when he felt the person will himself to a deadly calm. The Secret Service man's pace quickened, and as the target's emotions spiked, he 'yelled' at Stephanie and launched his body in front of hers. Down!

Liam's shouted warning came at the same time as his leap, but the President was already reacting, having picked up his alarm earlier. The expensive evening gown was ruined forever as she hit the ground, watching Liam's body land a few feet away. At first, she thought it had been a false alarm, then she felt the impact of the bullet as it tore through the Secret Service man's shoulder at an angle.

Liam! All thought of her own safety was driven from her mind as she sought his, only to find him focused like a laser on the individual who had fired the shot. Master Sung's training, and her own practice took over like a well-oiled machine. Their minds joined, drawing energy from the other five, and a needle-thin bolt of invisible force drove itself through the brain of the would-be assassin.

A split-second later, as she tried to crawl toward her bodyguard, Stephanie found herself lifted bodily by the other agents and tossed unceremoniously into the back of the Presidential limo, which sped off on a predetermined escape route, scattering pedestrians and other motorists alike.

"Help him!" Stephanie screamed at the agents with her in the limousine, but they continued to scan the crowds, weapons drawn, and ignored her pleas, as they had been trained to do.